


I know who you are

by LittleGreenPlasticSoldier



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angels, Blood, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Dean in Hell, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hell, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Panic Attacks, Panicking Dean, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Tumblr Prompt, Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-04 07:52:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5326469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleGreenPlasticSoldier/pseuds/LittleGreenPlasticSoldier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your moving in with Sam and Dean couldn't have gone better, even if you'd planned it yourself.  Your business with Dean is unfinished and here is where you can bring things full circle.<br/>What you didn't plan, however, was the way Dean would remember how he knows you. When that past comes back to him, it comes swinging - threatening even to bring the very outcome you're trying to prevent -  and you scramble everything you've got to keep your hopes alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Cross posted from Tumblr:  
> For @deanxkatherine-af for her [One Week Writer’s Challenge](http://deanxkatherine-af.tumblr.com/post/133613060017/one-week-writers-challenge-dean-winchester), via @aprofoundbondwithdean

“You figure it out?”

You jump at Dean’s voice behind you, even though it gives you comfort. “Damn, this room is echoey!” you gasp.

He returns your grin and comes over, chest facing your shoulder, to look in the machine at whatever you’re looking at.

“I seem to have decoded your industrial equipment,” you report. “Water is flushing, things are whirring, dirt shall flee.”

“Great! Get all those racer-back singlets nice and clean?” he grins.  “I don’t think there’s much left in the bunker to figure out.”

“Do you guys have a cooking roster or anything?” you ask, as he follows you out of the laundry.

“Nope, it’s all volunteerism and rock-paper-scissors,” he says.

“Huh, you must do a lot of cooking.”

“Heyyy,” he nudges you with his shoulder.  “I’m a great cook.”

“Yes, from what I’ve had so far, yes you are,” you beam at him and he’s easy and relaxed with you.  Pure warmth.

“So, we’ve got some time, you wanna watch something?” he suggests.

“Yes, but can I try making caramel popcorn for it?” you ask, almost bouncing beside him.  “Help out me and my kitchen skills?”

“That sounds brilliant, and yes.  How about Pulp Fiction after?”

“Perfect.”

You couldn’t have planned – although you’d certainly hoped – for a happier moment on your third day in the bunker.

* * *

“Hey,” Sam starts, settling into the lounge chair after you’ve gone to bed. “Can you fill me in on that?”

“On what?” Dean asks.

“What’s going on with you and Y/N?”

“Nothing!” Dean answers, a little shocked at the suggestion.

“No,” Sam shifts in his seat, “No I know it’s ‘nothing’, but is there…” he searches for the pointy part… “You guys are like peas in a pod.  Peas who could be in a pod.  You’re like, close… fast.  She’s been here barely a month and you guys are already so tight.”

“Yeah, well,” Dean shrugs defensively.  “I dunno.”

Sam’s eyebrows go up, as if you say _You ‘don’t know’? Try…_

“What?!” Dean defends.

“Dean, I’m not attacking you,” Sam explains.  “But that’s my point, do you know what’s going on?  Who have you ever gotten so chummy with so fast?”

Dean purses his lips, and breathes, trying not to take offence, but he is cautious.  It has been surprisingly easy to be close with you, to kick off an intimate friendship like it was always there…

“I do not know, Sam, she’s just… easy company, okay?”

“A kindred spirit.”

“No-”

“Soul mate?”

“Come on Sam! Do you really need a label?” Dean looks around his own brain, wondering if there’s something to pick up and show Sam that’ll help, but he’s lacking evidence he can define.  “It’s just plain good.  I can’t be bothered fighting something easy like that.  We’ve tested her, she’s kosher.”

“No, it’s not that, I just… it’s just a curious thing,” Sam says, wrapping it up in resignation.

“I’ll give ya that,” Dean sighs, “but it ain’t bad.”

For your part, things are as you long hoped they would be.  You are close to Dean Winchester.  You can help him heal and be happy, however that might be helped.  You are… sweet for him, so to speak, but don’t want to create something he doesn’t want.  It isn’t what will help most right now and the extent of your effort there is in aesthetics and company.  You wear clothes that you think compliment you and do hair styles that go with smiles.  And, Good Heavens, you smile whenever you can.  Because you’re here.  And he’s alive.  And it could have turned out worse. Immeasurably worse.

A week later, at the end of the next hunt, you’re curled up on the back seat of the Impala and Sam’s filling the tank.  Dean leans his arm over his seat so he can look at you properly.  He tries to see you, maybe as how Sam sees you, but he can’t.  No matter what his eyes might be taking in, he sees shiny eyes, cheery and generous, and a ready smile that reflects how he feels before he’s got a name for it. If he didn’t know you as a hunter, he’d say you’re nothing like him, nothing like a kindred spirit in that sense.  But the way you fight feels familiar.  You have a sense of determination and duty he feels aligned with.  Once or twice, in the 3 months or so you’ve known each other, he’s seen your fighting from across the room.  Your fierceness, the tunnelling of your strength and the way you just… complete the task.  If something needs killing then it gets killed, and all emotion and fear is put aside till the task is complete.  You have his stoniness, in those moments.  It’s easy to admire, but such a contrast to your radiance when you’re happy.  He doesn’t realise he’s turning a blind eye to the chill of that detached characteristic (maybe he can’t see it like Sam does).  Anyway, you certainly seem happy with them.  

A complementary spirit, maybe.

* * *

On a long hunt, tracking a small nest of vampires, the three of you have found yourselves in an abandoned farm building on the edge of a small wood.  The recon was thorough, and good, but a random element in the form of a returning alpha appeared mere hours before your planned bust.  That development was discovered upon your arrival.

It had gotten messy fast, the tables quickly turning with the shift in ratio.  Plans had been scuttled and Sam had escaped outside while you and Dean were pinned.

Now Dean stands, arms wrenched behind him, as the alpha paces and considers the situation.  

Dean guesses, even though it hasn’t been discussed, that a capture won’t necessarily be the end of them.  There’s been enough observation to see how the nest has survived for so long, and that was through careful decision making.  There would be no hasty executions of Winchesters and Friend.

Dean hadn’t seen you captured, but he can see you’re out cold with a burlap bag thrown over your head, hands bound behind you as you lay on the ground in the corner.  Sam is outside, wrestling with someone, and it feels like things are slowly going to shit.  

“Put him in a chair and help Heather,” the alpha says.

Dean spends the energy fighting them to give Sam more time, but he’s soon sitting, wrists tight against the chair’s back frame and ankles awkwardly roped to the front legs.  He puffs and scowls, but the alpha is quiet, pacing as the noise outside works its way to the front of the barn and indoors.  

Dean manages to smother any reaction to the sight of Sam being pushed, heels skidding on the floor and head tilted back thanks to a handful of hair.  So far, the blood on his clothes looks like it’s from others.  

It takes two vamps to wrangle him, and they bring him around to the side of the scene and present him to the alpha.

“Where are Heather and Terrence?” the alpha asks tersely.

“Not coming back,” one of them replies.  That leaves these three.

The alpha looks between them, breathing firmly, frustration suppressed, before pacing twice more and saying his piece.

“It would be far too great a waste,” he declares loudly, “to put you to death-”

 _Aw great_ , Dean thinks , _a fucking performance artist_.

Sam glances at him in sympathy.

“- but I dread to think of what a pain in the ass the Winchesters would be to a nest.”

“You forget what it’s like to be a teenager?” Dean quips.

“I remember what it’s like to taste a teenager,” he replies coldly. “…Angsty.”

The alpha comes back to stand before Sam, indifferent to his own shortness, and smiles as Sam’s head is turned for him, bouncing veins presented at eye-level.  The brothers watch as he takes a few seconds to watch Sam’s life force rush through him, the coaxing throb of it, and he leans in.

“Get him on the pole,” he says breathlessly.

Dean’s mind flashes an image of Sam being killed right there, with a rope around his chin, but swallows the thought so he can watch for opportunity.

One of them secures a rope around Sam’s wrist, takes it around the 2-feet of thick wood, loops it over his head, then returns it around the back to his other wrist.  Sam can nod, breathe, even shuffle himself sideways, or to the ground if he took the time, but his hands can’t touch and it’s a smooth, snag-free pole.  Dean sits only 10-feet away, on his right, and the alpha stands before them, forming a triangle.

“I think…” the alpha sways, ponderously, then turns to looks back at your body before considering Dean again.

“What ya thikin’ Doug?” asks the guy.

“It’s like Fuck Marry Kill, you know?” he chats with his progeny.  “I’m thinking we feed off one, half-turn another, just for the torture, and turn the third.”

“Oh well we should feed off this one,” the vampire replies, kicking Sam’s shoe.  “He’s big, good volume.  And he deserves a long hard think.”

“Good point,” Doug nods.

Dean’s trying to keep an eye on you, watching for movement and willing you stay still if you wake.

“If we turn this one,” he says, strolling to Dean, “I think we’d have quite the formidable asset on our hands.  If Sammy over there only has to taste my blood to be lost to the warm abyss of being undead, maybe that would keep his big brother in check.”

Doug bends over, leaning his hands on Dean’s knees as he lowers his gaze level with Dean’s.  “Maybe you’d prefer to feed off _her_ ,” he says, teeth wet with temptation as he imagines Dean feasting on her fluid.  “You don’t have to bite her in the neck, you know. Anywhere pale and soft will be bountiful.”

Dean’s sets his muscles in stone, not even swallowing the rage he can taste. Just lets it sit there, on his tongue, whetting his appetite for violence, and pushes away the images painted by Doug’s words.

The ringing in Dean’s ears is broken by you, your shoe shifting on the ground.  Doug turns his head to see you trying to pull yourself right, knees curling up to your chest so you can kneel.  

“Get her over here,” Doug says.

Two of them march over, yank you up by your arm pits and carry you toward the space.  Your feet trip over the distance uselessly, orientation and purchase lost for the moment.

When you’re stood and still, they pull the bag from your head and you start at the brightness and close quarters of Doug, who you hadn’t met yet.

It doesn’t take long for you to see Dean and Sam are bound but not bleeding, so you’re half hopeful.  What buoys you the most, however, is the pathetic knot on your wrists: a toy boat could float away from this.  

The vampire to your right is holding a machete – your machete – and you begin incrementally easing the rope around your bones, absorbing the angles with your wrists so your upper arms can hide the movement. You let Doug talk while he moves around the space, easily done with a gag between your teeth.

“You talk about volume, Sean, but she’s enough, really.  We could fatten her up-”

Dean sees the ends of rope drop down behind your legs and immediately ignores it.

“-give her a bit more body to work with.  I like a bit of cush when I feed, to be honest.  Just the _vitality-_ ”

You step back deeply, stomping the left guy in the hip and knock him down and into Doug.  The woman on your right swings the blade, not knowing you’re going to catch it.  You catch her action and knock it from her hands as you slam your foot into her armpit.  

The first comes back at you and you chop at his reaching arms, hacking off one below the elbow as you step backwards, then collect his arm under yours as it reaches for balance, twisting it straight and tilting him sideways to slice his head off as he stands between you and the alpha.  

When she attacks again, you swing back up, into her rib cage from her waist and pull the blade free to come around and behead her too.

Before you can remove your gag, Doug comes at you, his experience and form apparent and focused and you shuffle back once to get clear ground. He dodges and creates an angle, trying to work you back over the bodies to trip you.  It works a little, your feet taking some time as you get into the gap.  Sam watches Doug, readying his feet in case you are pushed back into him, but you keep your distance from him.  

Dean has a clear view of Doug coming at your front and takes a tight breath when it happens.  The attack is fast and in two blurring beats he has you on one knee, your hair in his fist.  You stab behind you, on that side, and feel resistance and growling as you make contact with something bony.  He punches you in the ribs, cracking something and you cry out for the first time around your gag, furrowing your brow enough to pinch your skin.

In Dean’s vision, the light around you stains yellow, then darkens and tunnels, and he loses time.

You hack again at your last hit, angling back further.  Doug’s grip weakens enough for you to pull forward, lengthening his holding arm and turning yourself.  You swing as you fall to the ground beneath him, your view crooked and unfocused because he hasn’t let go, but your first strike cuts deep into the base of his neck.  

Blood drops out of the trench you’ve made and splashes onto you.  Dean’s vision pulls back a little, the blackness now tinged claret, and he stares at your bloodied face, teeth bared around the gag, and feels his face fall loose and cold as his mind slip backwards…

Doug drops forward onto his knuckles with your hair still in his hold, glassy eyes shining hot above all the bright red, and as he pins your head to the concrete you swing again, shallow but double-handed to push and pull.

His skull drops next to yours and his body thuds down, wet noises smacking beneath your chin.  The warmth runs out of the neck, onto your chest and you feel it seep under your shirt, already soaking into your armpits.  You push the body off yourself, release your hair, and worry about the legs later, choosing to puff and rest a moment while you remove the gag.

Dean’s heart begins to race, copper flooding his mouth and cold electricity running up his neck and scalp.  He loses feeling in his fingertips and the backs of his knees begin to tingle, all because you’re removing your gag and slowly, calmly, coming to sit.  He can’t see the rest of the room, and doesn’t register how you’re untangling things and Sam’s voice, asking if you’re okay, is a distant mumble. All he sees is you freeing yourself, covered in blood, recovering from pain, and slowly, gingerly, finding your feet.  You’re free.  

You’re standing free.

Finally…

And he’s bound to a chair.

You look to Sam, expecting to smile but his eyebrows are titling at Dean. You turn to see and Dean flinches as if to straighten.  The colour has left him and he shines like a sick man.

“Dean?”

“Sam!” he rasps, mechanically.

“Dean? You’re okay,” you say, turning and raising your palms towards him and you habitually lean forward to ease his distress.

“Sam?!” he repeats, voice rising sharply.  You step towards him and his body snaps into action, heels scraping on the ground as he bucks backwards into the chair, and he pleads as if helpless and done for.  “Sam? Sammy?!   _Sam_!”

His brother answers: “I’m here, I’m right here, you’re okay,” he says, trying to keep his tone from rising, yet it does because he’s unconsciously pulling on his own restraints and chocking his own breath.  “You’re okay, Dean!”

You step towards him, aching at the sight of him in panic and he starts thrashing himself, even going to stand but recoiling as you come closer. He lands in the chair and it rocks back perilously.  When you lunge forward to catch it, his reaction is pure terror.  His face crumples as he braces himself and turns away, desperate whimpers begin bouncing from behind pursed lips.

“Y/N, what’s wrong?” Sam asks, but you focus on Dean, not realising that Sam’s on the edge of threatening you.

“No, Dean,” you say urgently, hesitant to touch him at all, “Dean you’re safe, I won’t hurt you.  You know me.  You’re safe.  I’m not going to do anything to you.”

Dean tries to quiet his voice and braces himself for something.  For you.

“Y/N,” Sam says, barely keeping a lid on his own anxiety.  “What _the fuck_ is going on?”

“Hang on,” you mutter and drop your voice to the most soft, most measured timbre you have.  “Dean? You are safe.”

He gives a minute shake of the head.

“You know me,” you say gently and reach around lay a hand on his.  His whole body jolts.  You feel your throat tighten in empathy and fight it back to stay steady.

“Look at me,” you say.  “You _know_ me, Dean.”

You squeeze his knee and he drops an _Uh!,_ then drags in a shaky breath, still pulling away from you.  

“Hey, did you see something?” you ask gently, stroking his fingers as you talk.

He makes a sound behind his lips and you hope it’s a yes, so coax him gently.  “What did you see?  What did you see about me?”

“Uhh…” his lower lips shakes as he cracks his eyes open a little, staring at the ground, “…all …all your blood.”

“Not my blood Dean, not this time,” you tell him.  

He looks at you sideways, his eyes jittering over your features and trying to see the context that’s been triggered.  He starts to frown and turn toward you.  

“When did I see your blood?” he asks.  

You take half a breath and release his wrists from the rope as quickly as you can, racing the clock of his recollections.

“When have I seen your face like that?” he half wonders, breathless and stunned, concerned for your history now too.

“Dean-”

“Do you know?” His hands hang by his side as he tries to piece it all together.  

You take a moment, on your knees before him, and place a tentative hand on his chest while you choose the words you’ll use.  He’s indifference to your touch is reassuring… or he’s in shock.  

This is something you should’ve thought of more, back when you decided to interrupt their lives.  This scene, granted, was not something you’d have predicted, but you want whatever it is you say to crack those memories in the least painful way.  Which is, at best, something that will rip his heart…

“The gag,” you say, and look at him with all your honesty and readiness and remorse.  “The gag was wood.”

Suspended moments pass as he sits and lets his brain replace the elements, the image filling out from that point.  Darkness becomes shape and shadow and the tableau takes motion.  Then the colours; grey grime, dark dried blood, your pale sheen and cut hair, soot-crusted stone, sweat-soaked wood, the caked chains and sweating teeth.  The _true_ red.

Dean’s own noise – the rasping of building breath as he sees the merciless torrent of memories - then cuts through and triggers memories of every sound a body can be made to give. He snaps his face shut to shake it out of his head.

You watch him dive into the years of terror, waiting for him to come back to the room, and repeat his name softly in the hopes it will anchor him.  Tentatively, you put your palm to his jaw, your thumb above his ear.

When he gasps at the touch, it’s a winded breath, and he tastes the odour of blood, warm and wet on your arm.  It’s sucked against his tongue and soft pallet and he finally sobs at the full recollection of you under his knife.

“Uh I’m so sorry,” he cries, and crumples.  “I’m so sorry.”

“Dean,” you plead, and take his head in both hands, pulling it up as you will him to look at you, “I forgive you.”

Slowly his head shakes form side to side, his face all creases of red and white, and you lean up to hold your cheek against his so you can talk warmly to his ear.  You press his head to yours and slide your hand back down to claps his fingers.  When you talk, it’s everything you can do.

“I forgive you Dean, I forgive you.  I always did-”

“But what I did, Y/N-”

“I know, I know,” you soothe like a mother.  “I know Dean, I remember, but I know why you did it and I forgive you. I forgave you…  That’s why they never let me talk… because I would’ve told you every time we met and every time you left that _I forgive you_.  You hear me? You were always forgiven.”

For a moment you let him tremble in your hold and hope the words penetrate his pain.

You lean back to look him in the face, pulsing your hold in emphasis. “Look at me Dean,” - he resists - “hey, look and see, I’m okay.”

He does, and you smile for him as best you can.  “See? I’m here and okay, in spite of everything.”

He breathes through wet lips and sodden cheeks, wordlessly asking you how and why.

“When I got there, Dean, after we stormed their defences and …after I lost… They started on us both.  With you they used pain, and then dishonour, and with me…” you hesitated…  “They made me watch what I had failed to prevent.”  At this memory, this cold fact of defeat when your small faction of comrades had burst in on his first night in hell and been thwarted by sheer numbers, not realising the force they’d use to preserve their asset, your chin shakes, unsure about whether your fallen friends had gotten the worse fate.  “I failed, Dean, and you suffered-”

The air flurried and you knew Castiel had arrived, probably beckoned by Dean’s racing mind, distressed and throwing out questions while you’d explained.  

“Y/N!” he gasps beside you, from Sam’s right, but you don’t move to acknowledge him, just watch Dean for signs of reprieve.

“Cas, you know, Y/N?” Sam asks tightly.

“She was a member of my garrison.  She-”

“She’s an angel?!” Sam starts.

“She-” Castiel doesn’t know what to say.  “…  Y/N, we understood you were lost.”

“I was.”

Cas tries to talk to you. “I’m sorry, Y/N.  We… we didn’t hear-”

“Do you understand me Dean?” you go on. Dean’s recovery from this moment’s trauma is more important to you than any placation Castiel might offer.  “I always forgave you.  For _every_ _thing_.”

He closes his mouth and stills.  You can see he doesn’t agree with you, seeming almost sorry at how misled you are over that decision, as though you can’t possibly know the size of what you’re talking about, as though you don’t know him, really, and how unworthy he truly is.  

“I saw what they did to you Dean, every day they took you apart.  And when you took up the knife, and they had you start all your days with me, I forgave you.  I forgave you when you moved on to others, when you smiled, when you laughed, _every_ moment…” - He shakes his head, tears running down his cheeks when he closes his eyes - “They chose a righteous man, Dean, and you are still righteous. You are forgiven…  You are loved.”

You pull his head forward, forcing him to lean against your chest and you kneel tall to keep him close.  His hands come up to your ribs, resting on your back with enough strength to give you hope, and you almost break at the warmth of him finally making contact.  

There, between his knees, you let your tears fall on his shoulder and hold him wholly and tight, like you should’ve done that first night, fingers pressing into the back of his head and chest.  “I went to hell to save you Dean…” you whisper, wet words and lips brushing over his ear.    “…The job’s not done yet.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The hours following your revelation and Dean’s reaction to it.

Once he is fit to stand, leave, think, whatever, Dean moves over to Sam and their talk of heading back is skeletal and shaky. Dean doesn't look at you, but his gaze swims around the ground near your feet. As he leaves, you watch him like there's a chain strung from your chest to his.

Through the window of the barn you can see Dean leaning his forearms against the roof of his car. Sam stands beside him, talking. It isn't clear how much Dean is listening to him, or how comforting Sam's words are but you're aching to be there next to him, managing the messages swirling around his mind. Instead you're stuck in the barn.

Castiel has been talking at you, explaining the sequence of messages and untruths that had come to him after your failed rescue. While he apologises, in earnest it seems, his tone had that pious flavour of parental disappointment. You catch some of what he was saying but don't care enough to correct him.

“Why did you wait so long?” you ask, not turning from the window.

Castiel abandons his story and answers plainly. “Because that's when I was told to go.”

You sigh, thinking of how much breath everything takes. “You were too late.”

“Y/N,” Castiel comes to stand beside you, talking to your profile, “I wasn't ranked highly enough to change thing. I couldn't have gone earlier if I wanted to. ”

“Bullshit,” you say, looking at him then, for the first time since you defected from heaven. “What do you think I did?”

“Yes, but,” he sighs too, “defection of someone with your rank just isn't as serious as it would have been for me. And I was too senior to organise anything-”

“Such bullshit,” you mutter again. “What else was more important?” Your frustration is beginning to build now. “What else Castiel? They knew why he'd been taken – his father was taken for the same purpose – and yet they waited! For _what?_ For the first seal to break?! That's when things became urgent?”

“Y/N, I'm sorry but I was still inclined to follow orders-”

“ _What made you think_ _ **they**_ _were following orders?”_ you yell. “They _waited!_ They sacrificed him for themselves!”

Your voice echoes in the space, empty and thin. Talking to Castiel only reminds you of your stolen strength and although you try to align yourself with the humans you now love, with all their capacity and potential, it still stings to hear yourself merely yell. To feel so small.

When you turn back to the window you can see Sam and Dean readying to leave. Half expecting them to ditch you there, you exit the barn and make a quick line to the car.

In the Impala, the three of you wait patiently for Dean. You watch him via the rear-view mirror. He's looking at his hands, feeling pale and blurry in his lap. Sam's gaze flips between Dean's fingers and face, giving him his time. Castiel peers at the back of his head. He's invited himself along for the trip, just to supervise the conversation.

“You want me to drive?” Sam offers.

Dean picks his head up and goes through the motions of starting the car and pulling out, his face full of _Shit happens, mostly to us_.

Thirty seconds in, he pulls over. You can see his pasty pallor, a cold sheen still apparent on his neck. His grip twists over the steering wheel in short repetitions, but eventually he takes a deep breath, then gets the car back on the road.

No one tries to move the heavy silence.

When the fuel gauge ticks low, Dean pulls into a truck stop and gets out without a pause.

“Why didn't you say anything?” Sam asks. His voice is tight, and it's far and away more unsettling than if he'd yelled in your face.

“What would I have said?” you ask.

Sam turns to look at you and you flinch at his scowl. “He could've flipped out at any time,” he bites. “Do you know how dangerous that is?”

“He spent 40 years in hell Sam,” you remind him, “with his own hands. He doesn't depend on me for flashbacks. And you know it.”

He chews his tongue at the point but he's sure he's right. “You kept something from us, something huge, and it's the same as lying,” he turns back to the front. “I don't care how close you two are, none of us can deal with secrets Y/N.”

You swallow it down and think about the damage done. “What would I have said?” you repeat quietly. “And when?”

The car is quiet for a few seconds, Castiel watching silently.

“The truth, Y/N,” Sam says bitterly, and readies to leave the car, “the moment you saw him again.”

When Sam's gone, headed for the counter to pay, Castiel turns to you saying “Y/N, please let me say again how sorry I am that we never confirmed what happened to your party. We heard it was an abject failure-”

“Pretty much.”

“-with no survivors. If we'd known-”

“Cas there's no way you would've done anything differently,” you look at him hard, “the best I could've hoped for was for you to take me too... but if you didn't know to look-”

The door opens and Dean drops into in his seat. Sam leaves the building and suddenly there's no time to say anything important, and no room to say anything else. Everyone's in and waiting to go.

“I'm not sure you need to be here Cas,” Dean remarks, his meaning clear.

“I just wanted to help fill in any gaps,” he explains, or excuses. “Y/N may have limited information about your rescue and-”

“Well, thank you for coming but if I've got any questions I'll ask 'em,” Dean says dismissively.

“Well then,” Cas says heavy and hurt. “I'll await your call.”

The back seat is yours again and you glance at Dean. He looks exhausted.

“What about you?” he asks. “You gonna zap outta here too?”

“No,” you answer, “if you want me out of the car you'll be leaving me here.”

“Why don't you just fly yourself to wherever _the hell_ you want to be?”

It stings to hear him talk to you like this, especially these words, but you bite the inside of your lip. “I want to be where you are,” is all you say.

You practically _feel_ Sam's annoyance and the roll of his eyes. Dean shakes his head and blinks at the horizon, running his tongue around the back of his teeth. “She's got a mission.”

He starts the car and it's loud and angry and his speed and reckless driving feels like you've a dragnet behind you trawling for dark clouds, bringing a storm to the bunker.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back at the bunker, the fall out is worse than you had hoped, but Dean has his own ideas about how to make amends.

When you were in hell, when Dean had you before him, sometimes you imagined threads inside yourself; tenuous tiger-wires that connected your parts, from the head of each phalange to your spine. They'd stretch and give whenever needed, and snap back to form the next day. It was something to keep yourself together in some way.

Sometimes, especially during recovery, you imagined them fanning out from your back, invisibly searching the hive of hells to find your wings and work their way along the bones to the tips, where they were home. Even if they couldn't ever pull them back to you, the feeling was warm, like a ghost limb.

You can feel those threads tighten now. You imagine the wire is a bit thicker, shinier, and you wrap it around your bones to fortify yourself, ready to bend with and absorb whatever is coming.

In the garage the brothers get out and collect their gear with cold regard. It seems that their routines will be how they occupy themselves for now, so you wait for them to be gone before you follow their example. Hours later, you see they've eaten without you, so you make some food and eat quietly. It doesn't taste like much and feels loose in your mouth, but you keep straightening yourself on the stool, reminding yourself that Dean's the victim here and that you'll wait as long as he lets you.

You leave your bedroom door ajar, meaning to do so throughout the night just to show them your trust. As you're readying for bed, already in striped pyjama pants and one of your racer-back singlets, you hear Dean's voice from the door.

“How did you get out?” he asks bluntly. He's leaning on the frame, having pushed the door open. He seems hard and frustrated.

You put your things down and ready yourself for whatever this part is going to be. “I escaped.”

“How?”

“They moved me, after you were rescued, to somewhere far away and unimportant. I wasn't in my cell all the time but I noticed a corridor with a breeze. It took a while, but I gathered enough info and favours to get my door unlocked one day and I just keep going till it I found a crack.”

“How long?”

“Hard to say... couple of days?”

“No, I mean, how much longer were you there?”

“Oh... about a decade.”

He pushes off from the door frame and walks towards you. The closer he gets, the more his anger dissolves. He finds himself repulsed by the idea of you being afraid of him, almost nauseous from it, or the guilt, so as frustrated as he is at the day's revelation, he tries to let it go and thinks about what's behind it. What he really wants.

“I'm sorry about today,” you say. “I couldn't predict how that would go, or even if it ever needed to.”

“If you'd told me straight up,” he licks his lips, “it probably wouldn't have been that bad.”

You drop your head in regret, and he goes on “You could've controlled the time, place, who else was there, all of that... but you just played Russian Roulette with any number of unforeseeable triggers-”

“You're right,” you look up at him, eyes welling in shame at your own stupidity. “You're perfectly right. I should've picked a time and confessed and dealt with how that went.” You look at him and try to keep your lips from warping as you speak. “I'm sorry. It was awful, and just what I've wanted to keep from you. I've learned a lot since I left heaven, but I'm not doing this very well. I'm sorry.”

You stand there, facing each other, and wait for the other.

“Well... it's done,” he says.

You nod and wipe your tears. “Do you... would it be easier if I was gone?” you offer. “Do you remember what I said?”

Dean looks over you, sadly enough that you think he may have bad news, so you keep talking to make it easier. “I meant every word. It's why I found you, and if you think you can remember it and try to believe it, then I don't need to stay if you don't want-”

His movement forward stops you. It's only a step but a second later he's collected your hand and looks at it in his, turning the fingers over and remembering how he saw them for so many years. You've come back, after all that time with him hurting you like they instructed, then doing it on his own, and you've come back to make sure he's okay...

Your voice penetrates and he slowly realises you said something seconds ago - “I'm okay,” you remind him. “See? All in one piece.”

You watch him look at your palm and turn it over. “You should work on replacing those memories with these,” you suggest.

It's hard though, with a decade of material, to stop seeing the red and remembering how broken everything was. He shuts his eyes and turns his head enough that you know he can't shake it.

“You can stay,” he says and drops the contact, stepping back and then turning to leave. You listen to him pad heavily down the corridor.

That night, you're woken by his nightmare and its echoing cries. You grip the blankets to keep yourself from running into his room, suspecting that it's too soon to be doing that, and suck a deep breath of relief when you hear Sam burst in, repeating his brother's name and soothing him calm. A conversation later and Sam's gone back to his room. You stay awake and let the silence comfort you.

After a day of mumbled courtesies and grunted conversation, you're not sure how much of Dean's manner is guilt and how much is frustration at your lying. Your regret has peaked too, because since you arrived there's been nothing like this and now... your presence has provoked it all.

Regardless, this night you're woken again and this time Sam doesn't come. The cries get louder, higher in pitch, and when his voice breaks you lunge from your bed and run to his room.

The sound of him panicking again has you shaking and fraught. You know it's unlikely to end well, but you still crawl up beside him on the bed and lay a hand on the side of his head. You start chanting his name, smoothly and firmly, coaxing him down, and after a while his arm folds up towards you as he calms. With your lips on his forehead you feel his breathing slow and settle but it doesn't slip into a sleepy rhythm. His fingers on your upper arm become rigid and he lets you move his head to under your chin. His eye lashes flick against your skin as you brush your thumb back and forth in front of his ear.

You lean back and turn on the bedside lamp, but return to the same position, even though your supporting shoulder is starting to ache. He lets you hold him but after some time he reaches up to collect your hand and you think he's about to tell you to leave.

Instead he holds it in his and looks at your palm again. He runs his thumb over the lines, seeming to compare the sizes and look for signs of history. But there's nothing, just a version of his own, and his mind flicks between what he sees and memories projected across it.

His body seems to slump further and relax, and after a while, even though you feel his head resting calmly, he says “You should probably go.” So, after a breath, you collect yourself and slide your arm out from under him to move away, and leave the room without a backwards glance.

On the third night you run to get there first, laying in front of him at the edge of the mattress. When he wakes he takes a fist of your pyjamas, tugging on your hope. Again he calms and rests beside you, and he collects your hand again. In a gesture that is all at once peculiar, thrilling and heart-breaking, he places it on his cheek and puts his hand over it, taking a deep breath and pausing for a moment. He pulls it away to look again.

“How do you keep from flinching?” he asks your hand. “I still flinch sometimes... Why aren't you angry and scared?”

“Because I forgave you so long ago,” you explain. “And you were a victim too.”

“So? I was a bastard,” he says quietly. “And to come back to someone who-”

“That's what forgiveness is, Dean. It's when I reach out _for_ you, and _give_ you another chance.”

He looks over your fingers some more. He tilts back to look over your face, how it's soft, trusting and wanting to look at him, thinks of how little you've feared him here on the surface, the open laughter you've created, and marvels at it. How did you muster such happiness with him now?

No wonder he didn't recognise you.

“That's why you always do nice stuff with your hair,” he says absently.

“Yeah,” you swallow. He means, because now you have some and not the roughly hacked stubble they usually left you with.

“What happened to your grace?” he wonders, looking back at your fingers, threading them in and out of his.

You clear your throat hastily and adjust yourself down the pillow. “It's still there,” you admit. You're at risk of becoming emotional about this.

“So you can't zap out of anywhere.”

“No, well...” you clear your throat again, feeling like you shouldn't keep any more secrets and as indifferent as you'd like to sound, you find you can't say this without revealing how you feel. “They cut off my wings.”

Daring to glance at him, the weight of his pity tugs tears from your eyes and you take a deep breath, measuring it out through fat, shaky lips, and you shrug. “I knew they would.”

Dean leads you to roll toward him, gently guiding your shoulder with his hand, bringing your chest to lean on his forearm, stomach to the bed. He collects the hem of your singlet and you close your eyes at the feeling of his fingertips being gentle, sliding the fabric up. At your neck he holds it out of the way and runs his touch over the melted skin between your shoulder blades, eventually resting his palm over a long scar.

“How did they hide that from me?” he asks as he caresses. “I had no idea you were an angel.”

“It was always a rack or a cross... the few times I was hung or free,” you swallow, “they whipped me first, to cover it.”

Dean's hand wraps around your waist a moment, squeezing hard, and you hear his breath break in remorse. His hot palm rests on your farthest shoulder and slides down your arm. He rolls you so that your back is flush with his chest, bringing him close behind you and you feel his breath on your neck.

“I supposed they didn't want you thinking you'd crossed a line,” you reason.

“The damage was done by then,” he says. “The blood was spilt.”

With your hands in his, he wraps his arms around you and rests his head on yours, sighing deeply and tightening his embrace. You look at his fingers amongst yours, the meaty creases and short nails. How they're still and warm.

You feel him there for a few moments and let this sensation add to the paint that covers older memories of him.

“I don't understand,” he says, “how you can stand to be near me. But I can't stop wanting to...” He lets his breath go. “I'm not sure I can really replace all that for you.”

“Dean, _I'm_ here for _you_ ,” you turn your head a little. “You don't need to spend time and energy worrying about me. I will be fine. I'm old, I've been through similar things before,” you explain. “What I want is for you to recover enough to look forward with hope-”

He slides his face to your hairline. “Have you considered that part of that might be letting me make amends?” he says, the feeling of his voice making your neck tingle, a feeling altogether kinder than anything he gave you in hell. It's what you knew was beneath.

When you automatically curve yourself to get closer to him, he pushes his chin forward to meet you. “I god-damned tortured you, Y/N. For years. How on earth can I make it fair?”

You push against him and roll away to face him like before, but distance seems to make him worry. “Dean, you already have-”

“No-”

“-and physical affection is not the way you have to repay me-”

“But the damage I did was so physical,” he tells you, shuffling towards you. “Could you stand me caring for you?”

You blink at him a moment. “Yes, of course-”

He puts a hand on your waist explaining “No one's ever been there for me like this, Y/N. You've seen me at my worst, taken it, and come back. You've made me smile, kept my heart warm...” He begins to move his hands up and down your back, the firmness of it bringing your bellies closer together. It's starting to intoxicate your thoughts and scramble your clarity.

“So I'm going to be clear about this part, okay? Coz this is a truth you won't know unless I tell you,” he shifts a hand up to the back of your head to hold you gently. He looks into you so earnestly, with such need, you're not sure you'll be able to listen to him, so consuming is the sight. “Since you moved in here, you don't know how many times I've looked at you and _wanted_. _I_ don't know, I lost count weeks ago. Letting me give to you like this wouldn't be penance, because it wouldn't be hard. To be honest, letting me be close to you...” he closes his eyes and leans his head on yours, “is truly is the last thing I deserve.”

“No Dean, that's exactly what I'm trying to tell you,” you rush, collecting the fabric over his chest in your hands. “You're _worthy_ of loving and being loved.”

He slides his head forward, getting his lips by your ear. “Then I choose you.”

The wave of heat runs through you, catching your breath, and for a split second you imagine a future of intimacy and freedom from pain. But it can't be true. “I don't know that you should.”

“Why not, Y/N?” you can feel his frustration building. He sees why you're hesitant but the dilemma is full of loops. “You think I just want to fuck you better? Whore myself to you because of a decade of sin?”

You hesitate to respond and he bitterly fills it in for you. “You don't want to insult me with that, do you?”

“I won't help you put yourself down,” you say carefully, “but I won't pretend it isn't a possibility, either.”

“It's not that,” he says firmly, adding “I know you. I know who you are. And I want _you_.”

By now his hands are sliding up and down your body and you're an inch away from contact down the length of your front. You've let him pull you close, only your forearms forcing some distance between your chests as his temple rubs against yours.

He lifts his head and looks down at you, somehow solemn and heated. “I'm sure you can't feel anything about me,” he says. “How could you even be attracted to me, _at all?_ ”

“I am,” you cough and shake your head because damn it you can't lie. You shouldn't lie any more, so you look him in the eye and hope your words echo in his darkest depths. “I really am... because I know you too.”

He drops close, and you blink in surprise. “I can be gentle,” he says, his lips brushing against your mouth.

“I know Dean, I don't doubt it,” you run a hand down his cheek. “You don't have to prove that to me.”

“I want to show it to you though,” pressing his lips against yours as he speaks. It may as well be kissing for all the promises he breathes into you. “Please, Y/N, I want to give you pleasure. I want you happy because of me. I want you,” he says, drawing you in like a sad siren and taking a kiss to start your surrender.

It's hot with hope, and he brushes over your hair and cheek as he says “Please, just let me kiss you, that's all.”

“Mmm,” you say, swimming inside his arms, drunk in your own naivety and inexperience.

He drags his lips over your cheek and slips his fingertips over your skin, striping them down your neck and shoulders, caressing and dragging gentleness wherever he can. “Just the skin, Y/N. I owe you... ”

What, in hell, made you think you could control this.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean begins to make amends.

 

You watch Dean move down the bed, letting the covers fall away from him as he settles off the end and looks up your body. He's never really handled your feet before, although he's done a lot to them. Quite easily, the memories of those terrible activities file through your mind – things you'd already stored away as _history_ back in the limbo years between Dean and the surface – and you wait to see how Dean might recall those things too, if at all.

He holds your feet in both hands and, true to this word, begins kissing them, over the bridge, around and under the ankles, even the soles. You lay there and feel the dry warmth of his hands, his breath, and wonder at how remarkably small his lips feel all the way down there. You look at the ceiling and thank Heaven that the lights are on so you can remember where you are.

He slides his hands up the back of your calves and you clutch at your belly. He pushes your thin pyjama pants halfway up your legs, kisses below your knee and drags his lips down your shins so that he can work his way back up the softness of the muscle, lifting each leg so he can get under them. His finger tips fan out as he take the weight of your limbs so kindly.

Then, when he pushes the fabric over your knees, he presses them together and leans his mouth between them for a moment. His breath cascades over your thighs and warms you. He's out of your reach but you look down, feeling the pressure and tightness of his hold while he's paused. His hands slide from the back to the sides, pressing at patches around your kneecaps as he kisses there too, as if to put it all back in place. You think he must remember at least some of what he did to you quite clearly.

Further still he works the soft cotton up your thighs and takes his time to kiss and nudge where the skin becomes paler, nuzzling between them to get to the smoothest skin. Your hands have come to the mattress beside you, as if to brace yourself. You feel safe, with your pyjama pants covering you still. He leans on his elbows and gets his nose into the crook of your thigh, his head hanging between his shoulders, and you run your finger tips over what you can see. He seems to need another moment, a tight breath pulled in and dropped out, but he doesn't stay there long. He picks up the hem of your singlet and begins to taste your belly.

As he moves from side to side, his attention getting slower and slower. You tilt your head to try and see Dean's face. Even though it's almost flat against you, you can still catch the stoniness of his expression, chin heavy with remorse and eyes hooded with sadness.

You thread your fingers through his hair and down the back of his neck and all at once he pushes his arms under you, wrapping them around your waist and resting his forehead on you, his nose in your belly button. You hear his breath as it breaks against your skin, a shaky out-in-in-out before you feel a kiss, this time wet and loose, and you pull him close, stroking your hands up what you can reach and encourage him to rest. You lead him to turn his head, almost forcing him, then feel him sag onto you and give in a little. With his cheek on your skin you both let his tears pool and slide over your waist.

For a long time you brush and cup his chin, feeling his halting breath bounce off your forearm. You stroke his hair and shoulders and wait for his breathing to settle, but by then he's fallen asleep so you flick off the light and try to rest too. In the last few hours of the night, his arms let go a little, and his legs bend and flex outside yours, but he stays there for the most part, his torso over your pelvis and thighs and his brow burrowing into you.

In the morning there's just you and a note: “Sam's found a hunt. Back in a few days.”

 


End file.
